Mittendrinnen…and the Urgency of Relationships

 Mittendrinnen*, out of the blue, Arthur sent me a message on Facebook: “Are you the David Raphael who went to Camp Ramah in the sixties?” And, in fact, I am such person. This opening line led to a flood of back-and-forth. Arthur (then Artie) and I were camp friends for four years at Camp Ramah and then years after. As young teens, Artie and I would meet at the Port Authority in New York and spend the day walking the streets of Manhattan snapping photos with our new SLR cameras (Can you imagine parents allowing a 14-year-old to do that today?). In 1969, we traveled to Washington DC together to join the March on Washington to protest the Vietnam War. We lost touch somewhere between high school and college.  A half-century later, Arthur and I have now renewed our friendship. 

Over the course of my life, I have been blessed with wonderful lifelong friends, some of whom I’ve known for over half a century: Richard, who became my “bestie” playing basketball for the Jewish Center of Bayside Oaks team at age 16 (1968). Today we share photos of our grandchildren. I am still close with Jonathan, my apartment-mate when I was a senior at college (1973). I reconnected with Bob, head of the waterfront at Camp Masada when I was a counselor (1972). Marc and I first met in 1977 on the Staten Island Ferry on our way to the first day of our field placement at social work school. And of course, there is my dearest friend, my wife Jo, who I have loved deeply for 45 years.   

These precious relationships have and continue to frame and enrich my life. I am a far better person because of them. I have learned of the importance of attending to these and relationships – regular phone calls, birthday cards, and being there in times of need.  

A recent passing health scare, (the seemingly ubiquitous backdrop of aging and, these days, the primary content of our conversations) caused me to reflect on the inevitable passing of time and, in this context, the urgency of relationships.   

And it is with this mindset that I think not only of time but of grandparental time.  

Life's occasional “health bumps” are reminders that I will never be a grandfather for half a century. In recognizing and accepting this reduced time frame, these moments suddenly seem even more profoundly urgent. And so, I will commit myself to nurturing and attending to these precious relationships and to be fully present in their presence.

As I think about my life after death, my world to come, I see it in the eyes and the smile of a six-year-old girl who loves to sing, dance, and twirl and her two-year-old brother who is infatuated with trucks and dinosaurs. And so, as soon as I finish writing this missive, I will make flight reservations to travel to an attached home on Abell Avenue in Baltimore, filled with toys, plastic spoons and forks, sippy cups, picture books, little sneakers, and the melodious voices, and hugs from two little children - the reminders of the urgency of relationships.

*Note: As a child, when I would either ask for something unusual, or do something unexpected, my grandmother, and then subsequently, my mother would respond, with a tone of either incredulity or annoyance, “mittendrinnen”  (mitten-DRIN-nin).

Notes from the CZO - The Day After The Visit

Notes from the CZO, Chief Zayde Officer   The Day After the Visit

The morning after our grandchildren left our home to return to Baltimore (with their parents), I spent 45 minutes trying to wedge the car seats from the back of our Honda. Reaching the anchors, hidden behind the back seat put my aged fingers to an excruciating test of endurance and required a dexterity beyond my 71-year-old capacity. Think of spelunking blindfolded. The car seat removed, I spent the next 20 minutes with the hand vacuum prying bits of Cheerios, fig bars, and animal crackers from the seat. A sticky outline of lollipop residue remains. While I wrestled with the car seats, my wife Jo began cycling the multiple loads of sheets, pillowcases, and towels through the wash. (A note about this marital division of labor, several years ago, Jo asked me to move the wash to the dryer. I responded: “Which one is the dryer?”).

Cleaning the basement playroom was another matter entirely. Doll clothing, Brio train pieces, and Lincoln Logs (remember Lincoln Logs?) lay strewn across an approximate 50 square foot area. We removed the batteries from a 30-year-old Fisher Price ambulance as its piercing noise caused a shrill feedback noise in my hearing aids. We will pick up or step on Lego pieces for months to come.

Our dog Maddie may have been the most disappointed to have the grandchildren leave as she no longer has access to fallen (or thrown) mac and cheese, bits of bagel, challah chunks, and Honey Nut Cheerios. And now, the house is clean, toys picked up, and the laundry done. Exhausted, we sit on the couch... and we miss them desperately. Gone is the joy of their laughter, the grandparental pleasure of snuggling with them while reading bedtime stories, the patter of little feet descending the staircase in the morning, and the sheer, unmatched delight of hearing “Zayde, Zayde, Zayde”!

Remaining are the memories of lighting Shabbat candles together and watching my children bless their children, baking cookies together, and the delight of romping with them at the playground. How can we measure these moments? I cannot help but return to Jacob’s words in the bible after he experienced his dream of angels: “Surely God is in this place, and I knew it not.” Surely, angels were in this place.

The Man in the Great Chair - The Great Man in the Chair

 

There are photographs everywhere. Children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren;

pictures of Ricky, his wife, and my aunt, who died six months ago.   They line the kitchen walls, living room, and den.  They are taped to the back of furniture so he can see them from the lounge chair.  Photos of grandchildren and great-grandchildren shuttle across two electric photo displays.

Ensconced, or perhaps engulfed in a motorized lounger he sleeps often. A push of a button and the chair reclines to a full sleeping position. It is in this position that he often spends his nights. He moves infrequently – once or twice a day to eat at the nearby dining room table – although, meals are often eaten on his lap in the chair. Two or three times a day an arduous trip to the bathroom is required.  He moves unsteadily clutching a walker and the home care nurse and I guide him as he goes. The danger of falling is quite real, perhaps even fatal. He struggles to retain his balance, so fearful – even with my constant reassurance “I will not let you fall. I will not let you fall”.  But who can truly offer full assurance of safety to another?

The house, that I visited first as a teenager more than a half-century ago is still beautiful but shows signs of wear.  A kitchen cabinet door falls off at the hinges. The kitchen and bathroom faucets drip incessantly.  A recessed fluorescent light fixture is missing in the den. Perhaps they are all metaphors for the man that sits for hours in the living room chair. Still beautiful but showing his age.

The Sabbath begins seven hours earlier in Israel where three generations of Fensters live. Thus, beginning at 11 am on Friday morning, the phone rings almost non-stop.  “Hello Zayde”, Good Shabbas Zayde”. His eyes come alive, and his voice lifts up with joy as he greets his beloved and loving family members from near and far. “Hello beautiful, how are things in Jerusalem”.  “Zak, wonderful to hear from you, what’s the Parsha (the weekly Torah portion)?  A long-distance biblical exegesis ensues. His memory of Jewish texts and verses is extraordinary.

He shares with me his most recent writing; “The Blessings of Covid-19”. Its core message – we are impelled to be aware of the holiness of each moment and the sacredness of relationships. We study Jewish texts together.  We begin with this text from the Talmud (Berakhot 17a)

When Rabbi Yoḥanan would conclude study of the book of Job, he said the following:

A person will ultimately die and an animal will ultimately be slaughtered, and all are destined for death. Therefore, death itself is not a cause for great anguish.

Rather, happy is he who grew up in Torah, whose labor is in Torah,

who gives pleasure to his Creator, who grew up with a good name, and who took leave of the world with a good name.

His mind is on death.  Ever since the passing of Aunt Ricky after 70 years of marriage, it is his constant companion.  Perhaps it has always been. In his own words, from a recent essay “Sometimes I felt that the “angel of death” was chasing me throughout my life”.

This became eminently clear to me the day his son, my cousin Jonathan, was buried days after a massive heart attack.  In a cemetery in Elmont Queens, in the shadow of Belmont Racetrack, I watched as his body was laid to rest next to Uncle Myron’s parents and his brother Elliot, who died of encephalitis at age 11.  Elliot’s death was an exponential amplifier of the trauma and sense of loss and powerlessness engendered by his coming of age during the Holocaust. “He died in one day, and my sister Eleanor and I and my parents were totally unprepared. I don’t want to sound dramatic, but both Eleanor (his sister) and I have discussed whether we ever really got over it.

It was in the spiritual world where he found solace, or more precisely, solace in the search for meaning.  Judaism, its writings, and its teaching offered to fill that void between a world that makes sense and one where sense is impossible. We cannot phantom pain, illness, death, and the loss of a loved one can never be comprehended. It is in our search for meaning in which each of us can imbue life with meaning and purpose.  From another recent essay of his: “You may not find an “answer, but you will be comforted to know your question is real, authentic and Biblical.”

Thus, the Book of Job became Uncle Myron’s life travel guide and his constant companion. The death of Job’s ten children, the loss of all his belongings, and his infliction by a painful and disfiguring disease, are depicted as no more than a cruel bet between God and Satan.  How else might one make sense of tragedy?

God’s answer, “You don’t”

Then the LORD replied to Job out of the tempest and said:

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations?

Speak if you have understanding׃

Do you know who fixed its dimensions

Or who measured it with a line? (Job 28 4-5)

Would you impugn My justice?
Would you condemn Me that you may be right? (Job 40:8)

In the end, God restores Job’s wealth and favors him with seven sons and three daughters.

“Thus the LORD blessed the latter years of Job’s life more than the former.” (Job 42:12)

Afterward, Job lived one hundred and forty years to see four generations of sons and grandsons. (Job 42:16)

Uncle Myron is not quite 140 years old, but he has seen four generations of children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.  Thus, the hundreds of photographs everywhere. The Lord has blessed the latter years of his life.

Uncle Myron lives in full awareness that his death nears. In our conversations, he questions whether he has truly made a difference in the lives of others. I speak to him of the thousands of men, women, children, and families who have learned from him and loved him.  Of the thousands of Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, weddings, brises, and baby-namings.  He scoffs at this, and he questions the lasting impact he has made. My answer is simple. “You held me on your lap during my bris, blessed me on my Bar Mitzvah, cried with me when we buried my father, married my wife and me, and chanted a prayer at my daughter’s wedding. You have been with me at every liminal moment in my life and then some. I have learned from you every day and continue to do so. If you question everything else, know the truly profound impact you have had on my life.”

Happy is he who grew up in Torah, whose labor is in Torah,

who gives pleasure to his Creator, who grew up with a good name, and who took leave of the world with a good name.

Uncle Myron, Rabbi Myron M. Fenster, passed away on Thursday, September 1, 2022, at the age of 95.

Wellwood

It probably should have been easier.  The idea was simple; stop at my father’s (and grandparents’) gravesite on our way to LaGuardia Airport.  According to Google Maps, Wellwood Cemetery is moments off the Southern State Parkway.  Mark, the Philippine driver who was helping transport, shop, and provide light caring duties for my nonagenarian aunt and uncle, would drive us.

It is striking that, while I tend to forget the names of most places I visit infrequently, Wellwood remains entrenched in my consciousness.  Having said that, every element, every moment, every image of those painful hours and days are etched in my memory. The elevator door opening to the hospital ward.  “How long”, I asked, my Uncle Stuart. “Very soon” he responded. Walking into my father’s hospital room where he lay moaning in his delirium.  Returning to the hospital the next morning to view his lifeless body before it was wheeled away. The queue of friends and acquaintances in the receiving room in the funeral parlor. Felix, the tall strong, African American foreman in my father’s spice factory, weeping during the service. The long, silent ride in the limousine and the long trail of cars navigating the narrow roads in the cemetery.  Dropping the first shovel-full of dirt onto his casket – a strikingly painful and poignant gesture - as if I needed a greater sense of finality. The glass pitcher, cup, and hand towels sitting aside the front door.  The dining room table laden with bagels, lox, a large urn of coffee, Entenmann's crumb cake. 

It should have been easier to find the cemetery, it is, after all, on Wellwood Avenue.  We had both Google Maps, a listing of the location of my father’s gravesite, and a cemetery plot map. The first Wellwood Cemetery we visited seemed wrong as it seemed too small, and the headstones did not match the ones I remembered from that day a half-century ago.  We circled till we found the correct Wellwood Cemetery, only to find that all the gates were locked.  And so, while Mark waited in the car, my wife Jo and I climbed over the low stone wall at the entrance and went searching for my father. Fifteen minutes of fruitless searching led us nowhere. It wasn’t until a cemetery worker drove by in his pickup truck that we were pointed in the right direction. 

It was Jo who found it. “David, it’s here”.  I ran over, and there it was, the plot stone with the “Walfish” etched into the marble; the name “Raphael”, written below, was hidden beneath the trimmed hedge. Three headstones Francis Walfish, Max Walfish, and Alvin Raphael lay at our feet. 

In the Jewish tradition, Jo and I placed small stones on each headstone. We recited Kaddish. We stood silently for several minutes and then walked towards the gate, climbed over the stone wall, and drove off to LaGuardia Airport.

I don’t know why I had never visited the gravesite.  Certainly, having lived away from New York for 42 of the 48 years since the unveiling of his headstone was a factor. But that leaves a minimum of six years of opportunity along with numerous visits to New York during those years.

 

It is a strange comparison, but perhaps it was for the same reason I never took psychotropic drugs in the years after my father's death.  I was afraid of the images that would haunt me, of the memories that would come to life with malignant ferociously.  The profound sadness, the abject fear, the deep-seated anger. All the hurt, all the regret. And perhaps, most frightening and painful, all the memories; each so deeply embedded in my soul.

 

But none of that happened. Instead, a sense of peace embraced me. 

 

With Jo beside me, I reflected on my father’s passing in the context of the days of my life and my life as it is today. My family, my friends, and others I love. My life’s work. My beliefs and my values. My choices. 

 

Along with thousands of other life moments, my father’s death made me who I am.  I have been framed by both days in his presence and those in his absence.  I do miss him, and I do think of him. I’d like to think that he would have been proud of me.  I’d like to think that, somewhere, in some heavenly sphere, he is. A long time ago I wrote of his passing “Time does not heal all wounds; it is how you spend your time that heals wounds”.  Perhaps that is right. I pray that I will never forget the painful days of this death and that they will always stand side by side with the joyful memories of his life. 

 

When we view our sadness in the context of our joys, and our joys in the context of our sadness, both take on greater depth and relevance.  The glass is both half empty and half full.

  

David Raphael 2021

 

From Bayside 2005

I embrace the memories of Bayside, where I grew up, and all that is evoked of my childhood in the context and presence of my mother’s recently diagnosed Alzheimer’s disease. Memories have taken on a new meaning and a new urgency for me.  They are not to be taken for granted and I feel compelled to secure and somehow protect them. I am reminded of the old, black and white Polaroid photos and the necessity of wiping them with a fixing agent to ensure that they wouldn’t fade.  If only there was a fixing agent for our memories.

It has become difficult for my mother to describe events; of days past or of the day that has just passed “We went to that special place to buy things” “We went to eat at that place where we always go”.  She confuses nouns and proper nouns; I become Leon; my wife becomes my sister; the car becomes “the thing we drive in”. 

Over breakfast I encourage my mother to talk of her youth and how she met my father. She talks in vague, ambiguous phrases and I work hard to help fill in the details. 

“I was at a place, (I believe it was small a women’s college in Manhattan), and men would come and visit”.

“I was dating another man, who loved me and kept on trying to give me something” (I believe it may have been some form of jewelry, perhaps a class ring). 

“I met my, father, I mean my husband at a place” (I cannot decipher this).  “He was so very handsome, and we fell in love immediately.”

“We wanted to get married right away but we had to wait until my sister got married first.  When we got married, it was at the same place as my sister”

These words that define who we are; these names, places, descriptors that give meaning and structure to the individualized world we have constructed over decades - what happens when we cannot find them?  There is a person who I loved, who I married, with whom I had children and shared a life.  He died, he was too young, I was heartbroken; who is that person?  Does our life slip away?  Do we cease to understand the path that brought us to this moment?

I work hard to be my mother’s partner in memory and together we come to share her story.  Perhaps, this is the nature of our lives.  We create and share collective memories – family memories, ethnic memories, national and global memories.  The sharing of memories binds us to one another.  My sisters and I have taken up the load to help my mother be part of this collective family memory.  We are richer for it, but there is a price to pay.

In the face of a fading past and an inevitable frightening future, my relationship with my mother is deepened and enriched.  Our daily phone calls have become warmer more intimate.  I begin by announcing myself with high affect – to get things started and to ensure that she knows who it is: “HI MOM!  I can hear the joy in her voice as she responds: “Hello, my son”.   I give her an update on children and relatives, and she tells me of her day – as she is able.  We end in a manner we never did before the onset of her illness - by saying “I love you”. Why is it that we only truly appreciate the present when we begin to lose the capacity to embrace the past or hope for a future?

My mother has begun to take stock of her life and to measure her days.  She talks of how lucky she is: Four children, 15 grandchildren and 7 great-grandchildren.  She is giving many of her prized possessions away; her parents’ magnificent breakfront is given to Susan; Jo and I now possess her beautiful crystal and silverware.  She cast off these heirlooms as she cast off her memories; she is letting go. In a seemingly paradoxical manner, my mother’s Alzheimer’s disease has brought me closer to my own past as I return to Bayside Oaks and walk the streets; as I talk with my mother and we become partners in memories.  Puzzle pieces of my own life, once lost, reemerge and fall into place. It is as if there is a law of conservation of memory; as my mother’s memories diminish mine are renewed. 

Across the table, my mother looks at me with such love that I am momentarily taken aback.  I realize how profoundly joyful my visit has made her and how grateful she is for our time together.  For a brief moment, it feels like a burden.  The unconditional love between parent and child has been redefined and realigned and I now fully understand that our respective roles have forever been dramatically changed – to an extent reversed.  She needs me, she longs for the times when I return home.  I exhale and embrace this burden, this role, this responsibility, this love.

We walk arm in arm down the streets that I have known for so long. The past diminishes.  The Bayside Oaks of my childhood is fading. The streets grow smaller, the houses disappear and are replaced by ones I do not recognize.  Trees, small when I was a child, are now large.  They send their roots under the sidewalk and lift the concrete.  The path is uneven, and I hold on tight to my mother so she does not lose her footing.  I will hold on as long as I can.

David Raphael © 2005

Uncle Myron, The Orioles and a Hot Dog

Freedom to love the law that Moses brought, 

To sing the songs of David, and to think 

The thoughts Gabirol to Spinoza taught, 

Freedom to dig the common earth, to drink 

The universal air—for this they sought 

Emma Lazarus 

When my Uncle Myron, known to most as Rabbi Myron M. Fenster, was to visit Baltimore for the annual gathering of the Rabbinical Assembly asked for a favor, I couldn’t say no.  He wanted to go to an Orioles game at Camden Yards. 

Not any ticket would do for Uncle Myron and I called in a favor and procured field-level box seats, ten rows behind home plate for a Sunday afternoon game. 

As game time approached the temperature rose to 97° with the humidity not far behind. I navigated to our seats which I discovered with dismay were exposed to the full brunt of the sun.  Uncle Myron went straight to the kosher hot dog stand and promptly arrived at our seats with dogs and knishes in hand.  And so, we sat, munching on these kosher delights and drinking Diet Cokes while the sun blazed down upon us and the humidity drenched out shirts.  Miraculously, we lasted till the seventh inning when we mercifully sought the refuge of the air-conditioned car.

What was it about kosher hot dogs and baseball?  It came to me several months after our outing. 

Uncle Myron

Kosher hot dogs at a baseball game represented the great coming together of the disparate parts of Uncle Myron’s identity. He is a proud American, born into the depression years and raised during days of the “greatest generation”. His father had come to America as a teen after watching his brother being murdered in the streets of Russia. America was the land of his family’s salvation. The land where he played stick ball on the streets of Flatbush, met and married the girl next door, and was accepted to the rabbinical program at the Jewish Theological Seminary. Guided by the learnings of our sacred books and grounded by the wisdom of our teachers he has been a spiritual guide and teacher to thousands.  

To be an American Jew. To be a Jew in America. Baseball, hot dogs, box seats, the Star-Spangled Banner. A double play, an inside fastball. A hot dog slathered with mustard and a Coke.  A commitment to Jewish tradition honored. “Baruch ata H’shem….HaMotzi Lechem Meen HaAretz.  Blessed are you, Creator of the Universe Who brought forth hot dog buns from the earth.”

Tekiah Gedolah

Still recovering from my post Yom Kippur gluttony, I awoke early to read the New York Times and came upon an article on Mark Zuckerberg and Marc Benioff, two Jewish techno-billionaires, blowing the Shofar. The digital version of the article featured a video of the Zuckerberg, in his ubiquitous long-sleeve tee shirt, blowing the shofar at home while an unseen child wailed in the background.  (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/17/style/marc-zuckerberg-blowing-shofar.html)

Like the Shofars (Shofarim? Shofarot?) used in my synagogue during recent High Holyday services, Zuckerberg’s Shofar appeared to be approximately four-feet long, it’s length far exceeding the length of his left arm which held it in place. At our synagogue, we had four men (although I do not believe any of them were techno-billionaires) with equally elongated Shofars serenading us with Tikiahs, Shivarims, and Truahs from different parts of the sanctuary.  The coordinated blowing was orchestrated to create a dramatic impact on the Rosh Hashanah worship. Unfortunately, it also confused the more senior members of the congregation.  All around me, octogenarians were seen adjusting their hearing aids. 

My friend Sandy turned to me and commented “I don’t remember Shofars being so long”.  Certainly, that was my memory.  Shofars used to be of the 10-inch variety, carved with small notches along their edges. Shofars today all seem to be in the 3 – 4-foot helix variety - far cries from the diminutive size of our youths. 

What also seems to have become elongated is the “T’kiah G’dolah” – the final blast of the Shofar in each cycle on Rosh Hashanah and at the end of Nelah, the concluding service on Yom Kippur.  In my synagogue, it is not unusual for the T’kiah G’dolah to last 30 seconds or more, causing the blower’s face to turn a brilliant shade of red.  I am concerned that one of them will have an aneurysm.

While I recognize that, to paraphrase, Freud, ‘sometimes a shofar is just a shofar’, to my thinking, the growth of elongated shofars and the final blasts of T’Kiah G’dolah, marks the rise of “Macho Judaism”, where men demonstrate their virility and alpha dominance, within the of context our Jewish rituals.  These are, in fact, “the Days of Awe”.

Another demonstration of Macho Judaism seems to be the “Hagbai” clean and jerk.  Each year select men are called upon to demonstrate their vitality by lifting the Torah after the reading has been completed.  The contestants demonstrate their strength and skill by seeing how many sections of the Torah they can unravel before the lift.  I believe the requirement is three, but, this never seems to suffice.  Seven or eight will ensure a positive murmur.  I do admire these kosher strong men but also worry that a slight misstep will require all of us to fast for 40 days.  I have nightmares of unrelenting caffeine withdrawal headaches. During these moments during the service, I was contemplating the need for a new pharmaceutical product “Jewagra”, to enable men to keep their horns and scrolls aloft longer.  Jars of Alex Jones’s “Super Male Vitality” supplements might also do the trick.  I added an additional “Al Chet” (“For the Sin”) for these wayward thoughts. 

My synagogue is fully egalitarian, and women participate in all aspects of the service.  But, in the 12 years I have been a member (and, perhaps, for the 60 years or so I have been attending synagogues), I have never seen a woman called to blow the shofar or lift the Torah.  Women in our country join the Marines, are fighter pilots and serve as police officers and firefighters around the world.  One would think they have the capacity to blow a shofar and lift a Torah.

The High Holy Days have passed, and Sukkot is upon us.  Around the world, Jewish men will be hoisting long stalks of bamboo atop our booths.  At our synagogue, the men will sanctify the holiday with “Cigars and Scotch in the Sukkah”. While I admire the alliteration, as a non-meat eater and non-smoker, I will demure. Don’t get me started on the Lulav.  Sometimes a palm frond is just a palm frond.